Moisturizer
by sgafan33
Summary: “My nose is peeling!” Tag for The Intruder.


Title: Moisturizer

Author: sgafan33

Summary: "My nose is peeling!" Tag for The Intruder.

Characters: Carson Beckett, Rodney McKay

Rating: T

Spoilers: Season 2, episode 2, The Intruder.

Warnings: Pre-slash, if you want to read it that way. Well, yeah, ok…

Betas: My thanks to SMR723 and Acthy for their beta work. All mistakes are still mine since I can't seem to stop tweaking this.

Disclaimer: 'Stargate Atlantis' and the related characters belong to MGM, Sci Fi, and Gekko Productions. I am making no money from this entertainment and can't imagine how I could.

A/N: Just a little something I thought of when I was watching The Intruder. I wondered why when the crew first returned to Atlantis, Carson was at Rodney's side at the control room console instead of heading directly back to the infirmary. Written before Duet, although I didn't get to post it before that episode aired.

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****Moisturizer**

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Although it had been pleasant visiting Earth and his Mum had been overjoyed to see her only son, Carson actually felt happy to be back in Atlantis. Following Rodney as he bounded up the Control Room stairs, Carson gave a grin as he spotted Teyla at the top of the stairs, a report binder in hand.

"Doctor Weir, Doctor McKay, Doctor Beckett, welcome back," Teyla gave each person a warm smile. "And Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard! Congratulations."

"Thank you." John said, giving the Athosian a wide grin. "Anything happen while we were gone?"

"There has been no sign of the Wraith." Teyla reported. "It would appear that they continue to believe that Atlantis has been destroyed. But I understand that your trip was not so happily uneventful."

Elizabeth frowned. "No, not exactly."

Carson stood by Rodney as the scientist bent over a console, entering in the commands that would do a search for any Wraith viruses that may have escaped the science team's initial review of the city in the days after the Wraith siege on Atlantis. After their recent experience on the Daedalus, Rodney wanted to do a more intensive check of systems in Atlantis.

Carson really didn't know why he'd followed Rodney to the Control Room instead of just heading off to the infirmary. The new medical supplies weren't scheduled to be off loaded until tomorrow, but he did need to check in with Dr. Brio and catch up on any medical situations that might have come up while he was away. Although it had been nice to receive that friendly greeting from Teyla and to know that they were still hidden from the Wraith.

Carson was just about to take his leave when he noticed Rodney brush his hand impatiently across his nose, then straighten up and stare at his hand in horror.

"My nose is peeling!" Rodney said with a trace of alarm as he turned to Carson. "Do you have a moisturizer?

Carson sighed. "Yes, Rodney."

"Well, maybe we should get that."

"Yes, Rodney." Carson gave John, Teyla and Elizabeth a wry grin as he followed Rodney out of the Control Room towards the infirmary.

A short walk brought them to the doors of the infirmary. Scanning the familiar setting, Carson spotted Dr. Brio, who was tending to the hand of a Marine. "Welcome back, Carson." Dr. Brio gave the physician a wide smile. "I hope you had a nice time back on Earth. This is just a minor cut, nothing to worry about," she added as she prepared to irrigate the wound. "I just have to clean this up and put in a couple of stitches. I'll be finished here soon and we can review what happened while you were away."

Carson nodded. "In a bit, then." He turned to Rodney, who had lingered a few steps behind.

"Right, we should have some moisturizer in the supply room. Come along, Rodney."

Rodney followed Carson to a door at the back of the infirmary. The door slid open and the supply room lit up, revealing neat rows of shelving and its contents. The two men stepped into the room and the door whooshed closed behind them.

Carson scanned the open shelving. Retrieving a box off a lower shelf, he removed a small tube from it and replaced the box back on the shelf.

"Here you go, Rodney." Carson said, holding out the tube in his hand.

Rodney glanced down at Carson's hand. Arms stilled at his sides, Rodney made no move to take the offered tube. His eyes flicked back up and met Carson's.

For a moment, Carson's brow wrinkled slightly in puzzlement. Then, he grinned as he understood what Rodney wanted.

He uncapped the tube and squirted a small amount of moisturizer into the palm of his left hand. Capping the tube, he tucked it into his jacket pocket. He dipped two fingers into the white puddle. As he raised his hand towards Rodney's face, Rodney closed his eyes. Reaching his objective, Carson gently spread the cool liquid onto Rodney's nose.

As he watched the lotion dissolve into Rodney's skin, Carson's thoughts drifted to the many times Rodney had cheated death on the trip back to Atlantis on the Daedalus.

It was only chance that had kept Rodney from dying two days ago. Running thru a list of diagnostics, Rodney had decided to turn in for the evening before he got to the task of enabling some computer security protocols. The lead scientist on the next shift, Dr. Monroe, had taken over the checklist and he had been the unfortunate soul who was the first victim of what turned out to be a Wraith computer virus infecting the Daedalus.

Carson slowly ran a finger lightly down the sides of Rodney's nose. Rodney was right, his nose had started to peel a bit.

There had also been the 50-50 chance that it would have been Rodney, and not Lindstrom, who checked the computer logs instead of the junction box during the investigation after Monroe's death. Suddenly, a coolant pipe had burst above them, spraying out toxic fumes and blocking Lindstrom's exit to the main corridor. Lindstrom had to take refuge in an air lock as Rodney ran to the room's outer door opening to the main corridor. Lindstrom had no choice but to close the interior door to the airlock to keep the coolant fumes out. But no one could have predicted that the airlock cycle would start, the outer hatch would explode open, and Lindstrom's body would be sucked out into the vacuum of space. Poor Rodney had seen it all on the air lock monitor, unable to help.

It was sheer luck that it was Lindstrom, not Rodney, who had gone out that airlock and it had been even greater luck that Rodney hadn't inhaled enough of the coolant to suffer permanent lung damage or worse.

Colonel Sheppard had had his close brushes with death during the trip, too. When the virus had been unable to completely take over the Daedalus and take it to the Wraith, it had begun broadcasting a distress signal to bring the Wraith to the Daedalus. The Daedalus' technicians were unable to shut down the signal. John had then come with the idea to take out an F-302 fighter and destroy the communications array in order to stop the broadcasting signal. The plan had been successful, but when John had tried to return to the hangar bay, it was discovered that the virus had uploaded itself into his F-302 and was flying him away from the Daedalus, most probably headed to the Wraith. It had only been Rodney's quick reconfiguration of the Asgard transporter beam, locking it onto John's radio signal, boosting the beam beyond its range, and transporting John back to the bridge, that had saved the Colonel's life.

Finished with Rodney's nose, Carson refocused his eyes and looked at the face in front of him. Rodney's eyes were still closed, long dark lashes lying against slightly reddened cheeks, his face totally relaxed. It was a look Carson never saw when Rodney was awake. Awake, that face was always active and animated, the expressive eyes and non-stop mouth competing with waving hands that punctuated the scientist's words. Only when Rodney was deeply asleep did the small frown that he seemed to perpetually carry smooth out and no sound could be heard from his slightly parted lips.

Carson looked at the puddle in his hand and back at Rodney. Rubbing his palms together and spreading the remaining lotion, he murmured softly, "Best to do your whole face."

The pads of Carson's fingertips stroked gently up the middle of Rodney's forehead. They circled out towards the temples and came back together across Rodney's brow line. Carson's fingers went up the middle again and made a smaller circle. There was no sign now of that small frown Carson was so accustomed to seeing.

It occurred to Carson as he moved his fingers across Rodney's forehead that behind his fingers was the genius brain that had saved them so many times the past year. Although the plan to shut down the Daedalus computers and do a system restart from the backups to destroy the Wraith virus hadn't seemed like much of a genius solution to John when Rodney proposed it. Initially the plan seemed to have worked, but then the virus somehow came back. Not only had the restart failed but now the Daedalus was heading into a close encounter with a star that would kill them all with radiation. Thankfully, Rodney had remembered an SGC report of a similar situation which gave him the idea that the virus must have copied itself to the memory storage modules of the F-302 fighters sitting in the hanger bay.

As John and Rodney tried to make their way to the F-302s, the virus started locking out all the routes to the fighter bay. Rodney and John had been forced to use the transporter beam within the ship. Transporting inside a ship wasn't in the design of the beam and Carson suppressed a shiver at the thought of how easily Rodney could have rematerialized inside a wall. Or Rodney could have died from decompression if the air had been sucked out the fighter bay when the virus opened the bay doors just after the two men had rematerialized there. Only the quick thinking of the Asgard Hermiod in raising the bay force shield had prevented that. John and Rodney had just managed to remove all the memory storage modules from the F302s before the virus had overridden the fighter bay controls and deactivated the shield, letting the air escape into space. Luckily John and Rodney had managed to get into an F-302 and close the cockpit canopy before the air was completely gone. After all of that, another shutdown to clear out the virus still hadn't work.

Carson's index finger glided under Rodney's nose and across his chin, feeling the gentle scrape of beard. He traced around the little downturn on the left side of Rodney's mouth and marveled at the absolute stillness that Rodney maintained.

Carson moved his hands to the Canadian's ears, giving them a gentle rub before running his fingers down Rodney's jaw line. Carson had seen that jaw clenched so many times in anger or frustration. But the jaw now under his fingertips was slack and relaxed, tension absent for the moment.

It had been John who finally realized the one possible place left that the Wraith virus could be hiding. It was in the F-302 fighter left in space when Rodney rescued him earlier with the transporter beam. The fighter was now in control of the Daedalus, steering them ever closer to the deadly radiation of the star. John had taken off after the computer virus infected F-302, taking poor Rodney along for the ride. The comm system in John's fighter had been left open, and back in the Daedalus' medical bay Carson could hear Rodney nervously babbling as he tried to get control of his claustrophobia in the back seat of the small cockpit. Fortunately, John had learned over the months of having Rodney on his team how to deal with the fast talking lead scientist. He had calmly talked to the frightened physicist while he banked and rolled and looped his fighter thru complicated maneuvers, finally getting into position to destroy the virus-controlled F-302.

Rodney continued to stand quietly still as Carson used his thumbs to spread the last of the lotion across Rodney's cheeks. They were still slightly red from his exposure to the chromosphere of the star. Fortunately the fighter had windows with UV protection, but John and Rodney had passed very close to the star in their race to destroy the other F-302. John's darker complexion showed no effects of the exposure but Rodney's pale skin had turned a blushing red.

Back on the Daedalus, Rodney had made Carson run the radiation tests twice before Rodney was reassured that his short exposure so near the star had no effect apart from the minor sunburn he had received. Carson was afraid that Rodney's odd obsession with his personal exposure to radiation, pushed aside as he tried to cope with the new problems of surviving in the Pegasus Galaxy, had come back with a vengeance. In the hours after John and Rodney's return from their flight, he had found Rodney more than once recalculating the amount of radiation exposure he received in the back seat of the F-302. Rodney had whined that he hadn't put on his self-made SPF 100 sunscreen because who knew they were going to be exposed to deadly UV rays while traveling in the bowels of an interstellar spacecraft.

But here in the quiet of the Atlantis infirmary supply room, there was no sign of his obsession or his fears, or his nervous energy. Not even the intense passion for knowledge that seemed to define Rodney. This was a peaceful, calm man whose whole world was right here, right now, under Carson's gentle hands.

As he finished working the last of the lotion into Rodney's skin, Carson wondered what Rodney thought of all the death he had faced while working in Atlantis. Since John was in the military, sadly, dealing with death was a part of his job description. As a doctor, Carson had always known he would have to face death in his job. But Rodney was an astrophysicist. The only violent deaths he should have had to deal with were those of stars and galaxies, not friends and colleagues. Even though Carson knew Rodney had read all of the mission reports of SG1 and most of the reports of the other Stargate teams, reading about death and near misses was entirely different than facing them head on.

But Rodney seemed to be coping remarkably well, despite all the grumbling he did. Although Rodney put on an air of arrogance and superiority, in a sense it was justified. He really was a genius and his efforts had saved the Atlantis expedition time and time again. And while some people found Rodney off putting and rude, Carson actually found Rodney to be the most emotionally transparent man he'd ever met. All you had to do was watch his face, his eyes, and his hands and you knew exactly what Rodney was thinking.

The lotion gone, Carson gave the tip of Rodney's nose a playful tap.

"Better?"

Rodney slowly opened his eyes. Clear, bright and blue, they glowed with a softness that warmed Carson to his core. A softness that Carson knew no one else was ever shown. Rodney gave Carson a shy, lopsided grin.

"Yeah. Thanks."

Carson took Rodney's right wrist and turned Rodney's hand so it faced palm up. Rodney lowered his eyes and watched as Carson removed the tube of moisturizer from his jacket pocket and placed it in Rodney's open palm. Carson's hand lingered and Rodney curled his fingers and gently squeezed.

The two men raised their eyes and smiled at each other. Rodney pocketed the tube and they headed out of the supply room.

"See you at dinner?" Carson asked as he escorted Rodney to the infirmary entrance.

"Yes, get there early. I hear there's chocolate for dessert."

"Chocolate pudding or chocolate cake?"

"Who cares? As long as it's chocolate."

At the infirmary door Rodney raised a hand in farewell before heading down the corridor toward a transporter to take him to the science labs.

Carson watched Rodney's retreating back for a moment before he went back inside. Dr. Brio was now at her desk, entering notes on a laptop.

"Now, then." Carson said to her as he rubbed the last remnants of the lotion into his hands. "Anything happen here while I was away?"

**The End**


End file.
